Metaphors and Anachronisms
by Enchiridion88
Summary: Private gets wound up in the world of FanFiction. Everyone, please read this.


I'd like to thank 890X001 for helping me with this. He's awesome and he's been a great friend on this site for years.

It is impossible for me to review every story on this board. So, I will review the entire PoM board itself.

Take this as a parody, critique, or what have you.

* * *

It was a bright and sunny day in the zoo. This has to begin in the morning, of course. One cannot jump right into the action. Oh no no no! Dollar-store sun metaphors/openings are vital to the integrity of poorly written stories.

Kowalski stood in his lab, doing science related activities. As always, they were confusing to the point where it could only be described as "science and inventions and lab and things."

Suddenly, Private came skipping into the lab, joyous and as excited as can be. This came at the price of Kowalski's concentration as he cringed at the high-pitched screaming of "K'waaaalski!" Whatever beakers he was holding shattered and the liquids melted through the floor.

"K'walski K'walski K'walski K'walski K'walski K'walski-"

"In the name of Copernicus, Private!" Kowalski groaned as he turned to the eager penguin now bouncing up and down on his webbed feet. "What is it that you must interrupt me during my lab hours? What is the idea of solitude in this decrepit asylum!"

Private smiled blankly at the large words flying right over his innocent head. "Look what I made!" He held up a sheet of paper with lots of scribbles on it.

"What is it?"

"I wrote a fanfiction about us! Please read it, pleeeeeeeeee-"

"Alright, alright," the analyst sighed as he grabbed the paper. He took out a pair of reading glasses and straightened his beak at the paper. "Private, we can't read," he said shattering his glasses on the ground.

"Uhhh..."

"Wait, now we can apparently." As he stated, Kowalski could now read perfectly. Somehow. It was as if someone forgot that and simply dusted it under the table. The now literate penguin began to read over the work.

 _Pivat and Skipper danger._

 _"Ahh!"_

 _"Oh no!"_

 _BOOM!_

 _The thing explode._

 _"Whew that was close." Flipper whipe_

 _"Agh Skipper look!"_

 _"Aghh!" He was bleed_

 _"I'll help"_

 _"Thanks!"_

 _"Thanks!"_

 _"No problem!"_

 _end_

"Private..." Kowalski muttered as he placed down the paper and pinched the bridge of his beak. How was he going to break it to him? Well, he could be constructive. There were points where criticism was in order. Maybe a compliment or two then a barrage of inquiries about what on earth is actually supposed to be transpiring in this maelstrom of confusion.

"Yes, K'walski?" Private was hanging on his every word.

"This story is-"

"What's all the excitement about?" Skipper intervened.

"Skippah! Look!" Private said as he held up his paper.

The stubborn and brute leader took the story. "WOW! Haha! So exciting! XP"

"Thanks for liking it! :3" Private said as he hugged his paper.

"Uh..." Kowalski stared in amazement. He could hardly believe what was happening. "Skipper," Kowalski tried to reason, "I hardly believe that you of all people could possibly-"

Skipper turned to the analyst and blocked his beak with his flipper on the side facing Private. Everyone knows that doing this completely mutes whatever you're saying. "Zip it Kowalski. You don't want to hurt the little boy's feelings!"

"W'a oin' on?" Rico grunted as he came over.

"Look!" Private commanded.

"WOOOOOAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Kowalski shook his head, "I am lacking one too few intoxicating beverages for this mitigated tomfoolery." He shrugged and returned back to the solitude of his lab.

* * *

"Pssst, K'walski."

The analyst snapped awake. "Private," he muttered as he lay neither awake nor asleep in his bunk, "It's the middle of the night." His words fell out like like the last daps from a frequently used ketchup bottle.

"I know, but I have this reaaaaaaally great fanfiction you should read!" he whispered in ecstatic glee. He handed the scratch paper down to the poor penguin.

 _"Hi!"_

 _"Hi!" said every1_

 _"My name Krystal and Im a human!"_

 _"Wow Kobalski thought "Shes mor beatful than the ocean"_

 _"Wanna b scret agent with us?" Skipper_

 _"Sure! But my dad maks me clean me room and go to bed. I hate my life!"_

 _"GASP!" every1 gasped._

"What'ya think K'walski? I named Krystal after as a symbol for our last remnants of humanity after the horrible events of Krystalnacht by the Nazis."

 _"Is this even really happening? How can anyone believe this is a real thing?!"_ Kowalski choked on the dead night air as he struggled to find the accurate words to describe the thousand things wrong with this 'work.' Then, seeing how Private would easily flip out and wake up the entire barracks, thereby forcing Rico and Skipper to also be enraged, Kowalski submitted.

"It's good."

Private remained leaning over, deadpanned. Kowalski knew what he was waiting for. At that moment he wanted to destroy so much. He wanted to topple a freight tanker and dump oil on those pristine French beaches he'd never see. He prayed for a tsunami.

"Wow Private! XD HAHA OMG!"

With that, Private burst into a fit of hysterics. "OH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" he belched out as he jigged and danced around the headquarters.

Rico and Skipper also shot up, "WOW! SO COOL!" they both shouted, despite not even reading the story itself. Private leaped up out of the HQ and sprinted through the zoo, cheering with celebratory vigor and raving over his fantastic literature.

Kowalski rolled over in his bunk while his eyelids were stapled open. "No, Kowalski," he muttered to himself, "You can't die from insomnia."

* * *

"Rico," Kowalski said as he approached the powder keg who carried a shifted glare. Everything was on a slanted plane. Through his view, the whole world was a snowglobe constantly being shaken by an eight year old. Surely his attitude would shed some light. "Have you actually read Private's stories?"

Rico nodded fervently,

"So you know that they're bad, right?"

Rico shook his head, still keeping the ignorant smirk.

"So... you think they're actually good?"

"I'on'o" Rico shrugged as his words grinded out.

Frustrated, Kowalski marched across the HQ to Skipper. "Skipper!"

The commander snapped out of his trance of staring idly out the window. He launched his mug onto Kowalski's face and assumed a professionally placed battle stance. "KOWALSKI!"

"Y-Yes, Skippe-"

"THAT TRIGGERS ME BACK TO MY DAYS IN DENMARK! HAAAAAANS!" He then collapsed to the ground, flopping like a trout on a scorching hot pier in July. He muttered incoherently about being triggered, how he sexually identifies as a bowl of spaghetti, and something about a past life as an incubescent sea turtle.

Kowalski stood there in amazement. "K."

* * *

Private lay on the floor of the iceberg, scribbling on a wrinkled, marginally filled up piece of paper. His tongue stuck naively out of his beak as his webbed feet kicked freely in the air. It was surprising that he was not writing on a Starbuck's wrapper, as would be the case for such a basic.

The food bowl hatch on the iceberg blew off with ferocious tenacity. A billow of black smoke wafted out of the HQ. Kowalski staggered up, coughing up a lung and covered with soot. He stopped his recovery from a near death experience once he saw Private on the ground.

He sighed. "Private, what are you writing now?"

The coming-of-age avian looked answered gleefully, "I'm writing a new story! It's about four girl penguins who magically show up at the zoo! There's Rebecca, the leader, and Brianna, the analyst, and Kiki, the demo-girl, and Cadet!"

" _Some days when I am alone, I wish a 747 jet plane would suck up another sea gull and carene straight for the zoo,"_ Kowalski thought to himself. "Let me guess, Private, Skipper dates the leader, I date the strategist, Rico dates the demo-girl, and you date Cadet."

"How did you know?! K'Walski, are you copying me?! This is an original idea no one has ever imagined before and its mine! Just like the idea of a human in the zoo!"

The tall penguin replied, "Private...Have you ever heard of James Joyce's _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_?"

"...Is that a Pretty Little Liars sequel?"

"Y-...You read Shakespeare, Private; the greatest dramatic author in history!"

"But K'Walski, this _is_ drama!"

"Private...What happened to Krystal?"

"Oh I got bored of it."

"...I'm going to go wash out my throat in bleach."

* * *

The pipsqueek sat roasting his eyes in the light of the television in a dimly lit HQ. It was a show animated with finely traced markings and consistently proportioned human figures. Then it immediately cut to blobs squeeling and whining with a distractingly bright background.

Carrying a batch of distilled Plutonium; enough to detonate a thirty kiloton nuclear device with an effective blast radius of three miles, came Kowalski down the ladder. He carried the first load of a two pound batch. It was not like he was ever going to use it; but he kept that information just in case.

"Oooh, Japanese anime!" Kowalski squeeled like a trashy weeaboo. "What a refined source of entertainment. Is this Akira?"

" _Hehe_ , no. This about a club for boys who date all the girls in their high school."

"That has to be a parody."

"Wot's parody? By the way, this gives me the perfect idea for a story about us as humans! You would be a perfect Kyoya type in it! That sounds great, right?"

* * *

Pretty soon, everyone in the zoo was caught up in the FanFiction craze. Private's unfinished, two-hundred word novellas spread at the same rate a celebrity scandal makes its way through tabloid journals and gossip magazines. Though hardly anyone actually read them, Private's works were the standard model. It was known as the Neo-Reenlightenment era of the early 21st century. OCs zipped and zoomed in the wafting airs above the zoo. They spewed left and right. It was impossible to avoid them. They all had the same structure and mannerisms, but they're all unique I swear.

Not a single person dared to add any criticism to each other's works.

The only one who seemed to avoid the sweep was Kowalski. However, he only withstood so much. Every iteration had an even worse and worse portrayal of the technical genius.

The final straw came in the form of Private's newest story, "4 Girls in the Penguin Partment with Lemurs." He read it aloud atop the iceberg. Half the zoo stood in attendance at the theatre.

"Woah," Julian commented, "This fanfictiony thingy is fantastic! Of course I'm the sexy extrovert!"

"And then kobalski said," Private read aloud, "'Oh, yo dudes. I don kno this. Newton boll ocs science fisics.' He was actually love Sarah Rabecca-Anne-Lynn with all hert once he first saws her."

"Ever-loving-Copernicus-for-the-love-of-Newton's laws, that's IT!" Kowalski belched out. His words were a freight train. Everyone froze as they stared at him, waiting for whatever he had to say. "Before you cut me off, no. Having legitimate criticism and advice is not being a 'bully' or 'mean,' it's actually helpful! It's advice! It shows that I care enough about helping your story to take the time to let you know what needs improvement! Have none of you picked up on this?!"

No one responded.

"Private, your stories have been horrendous from the beginning; I say that with love. I love you (as a brother) Private, but your writing needs work. _Ahem_. First of all, not everything needs to be about OCs. I know you love them, but they're not supposed to take up the entire narrative!" He waved his flippers sporadically and danced on his feet, "Hello? We're right here! Interesting characters with established backstories and canon history! OCs are a nice narrative drive. They can help move it along. And they can be _extremely_ interesting if they're given actual character. But, Private, you either make the OCs derivatives of us, your friends, or yourself. Meet us, one doesn't like him or her OR we all do, they save the day; that's all they are!"

"Furthermore, Private, you need to work on your grammar. Please use a thesaurus. There are _dozens_ of them! Spice it up! Use weird, different transitions or figures of speech! Everything you write, even if OC-based, could be heavenly with a little bit more dynamic effort. Stop the morning introductions, stop continuously saying 'said' or using basic words, and don't be afraid to kick 'like' out of comparisons. What's a better way to say 'All of a sudden'? 'Out of the blue,' 'Sporadically,' 'To add to the confusion,' 'To make matters worse,' 'Abruptly,' and 'In a spur of the moment.' I know you have it in there, _somewhere!"_

"Not to mention, even OC ridden and grammatically basic stories can be elevated by a dynamic story. 'We meet OCs and learn to like them' or 'We're humans living together doing human things' gets old fast. Do something with us! We're begging for it! A backstory, a character analysis, a mission that goes horribly wrong, a murder mystery, a coming of age tale, or just us doing something interesting. Have things go horribly wrong; a surprise plot twist; killing off the main character mid-story and shifting focus, rivalries; LAYER EVENTS. You read and you watch TV. Don't be afraid to reach out."

"And finally, don't be afraid to criticize Private's stories. If you don't like them, say so! It can help him so much in the long run! Having forty X-D faces does nothing. Please state what's wrong so Private knows what to fix, or can at least explain himself! Murphy's Law!"

Everyone stood in silence as Kowalski heaved from his long-winded lecture. "S-Sorry about that."

"K'Walski..." Private shattered the icy silence.

"Yes?"

"Honestly...Your opinion doesn't matter to me."

"Huh?"

"I've become so FanFiction famous with five people following what I write that I'm practically famous. I know that I'm like already an author already. And, WHY ARE YOU SUCH A BULLY! :("

"Yeah!" Marlene spat daggers, "How could you be so mean to Private?! You're just a troll looking to make other people sad!"

"D-Did you hear what I even sa-"

"Soldier, you are a disgrace and a scoundrel and gypsy!" Skipper proclaimed, then insulted every minority imaginable while comparing them to and swearing at Kowalski.

"Yeah ma, why does everything you say have to be so horrible and disgusting! Go play in traffic!" Maurice added.

"Seriously?!"

Rico's throat broke through this primordial realm and oozed into reality for a split moment. He screeched; nay, he howled to where mountains uprooted and rivers condensed into mist, "NORMIEEEES SHITTING UP MY BOARD, LEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAVE! REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Their mating call sounded. The OCs from a thousand planes came and descended upon the foresaken zoo, washing it clean of free-thought. The locusts flopped and flooded the small New York area. Hundreds of thousands of female penguins with pink bows and young adult women; all condemning the analyst.

And it.

Was.

Glorious.

* * *

If you think this is 100% serious, then you have no sense of humor. However, if you write how I described, then maybe you should rethink your current style.

This board is nothing but OCs and humanized fics all with the same format and elementary style narration. Please. BE ORIGINAL. I know you have it in you!

In other news, I am busy with college starting up. _Lovesick_ is partially ready, but that's hardly a parody anymore. _Wot's the Deal?_ is ongoing, but I'm reworking the story and where I want it to go in my mind.


End file.
